On Thursday 20 September 2001 11:37 am, Adrian Barnes wrote:
> A company was actually paid to come up with the name "Acura." Many cars
> are named that way. Chrysler had a contest for people to submit names
> and then they chose a winner. One or two of the cloud cars came out of
> that, I believe. With all the cars out there, new names are apparently
> difficult to come by. That's one of the reasons Acura is now changing
> to letter designations I suppose. I wish somebody would get creative
> and quit naming cars names that end in the letter 'a.'
Naming stuff, especially today, is a pain in the butt. I agree that the auto
names today are pretty bizarre. But there are all kinds of weird things that
go on in naming a product - I've been on the periphery of it a couple of
times. All kinds of stuff like how easy a name is to trademark and defend the
trademark afterward. Common words are tough - like windows (oh wait,
nevermind!) Made-up, nonsense words are much less likely to be already taken
and are easier to defend. I've also seen the "pay for a name" thing too, with
typically crummy results - that's what I should be doing. Just throw together
some letters and syllables into something that's vaguely pronouncable and
sell it to some poor sap for a LOT of money.
If it's for export, you need to have a good grasp of the language and
culture. I'm sure you're all heard how the Nova didn't sell in Mexico at
first since "No va" translated to "it doesn't go" - changed the name and
things improved. Anybody remember the Nissan Axxis minivan? Wonder why it
didn't seem to sell well in the US? ;-) I heard somewhere once that "Kodak"
was decided on by George Eastman because it was short, memorable, and had no
meaning in any known language.
To throw a (very) vaguely LBC related tidbit in, I was watching a History
Channel program about the history of 4 wheel drive vehicles and when they
were trying to decide what to call a Jeep, one suggestion was "Midget". Hmmm.
A "2001 Midget Grand Cherokee" - only somewhat oxymoronic. :-)
Eddie
1971 Midget
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